How social media channels can help travel agencies generate more revenue

Social Media is a digital gold mine for marketers. According to Wearesocial.com there are over 4 billion global users of the Internet in 2018. With over 3 billion people on social media sites as you learned in how to optimize for success . This is greater than the two most populous countries, China and India combined. The fact is that social media is constantly growing. Travel marketers can use visual and textual techniques to pick the mind of their target audience. But to their target audience they are perceived as one of thousands of likeminded businesses.

How can you ultimately stand out?

In a Guardian article that discusses the short attention span of social media users. ” A connection was made between social media and attention by British Neurologist, Lady Greenfield because social networking allows for “instant gratification”. We are a now society that strives for next big thing. We do not appreciate the value of things when they are here. Take if I was to buy a new iPhone and Apple start to promote an upcoming smartphone with new features. I would immediately start to anticipate what is it come. Devaluing what I already have.

Humanizing your Brand

Humans are social creatures with an innate desire to connect. As a travel agent marketing your services focus on the value you can provide. Forget about the product or service you offering for a second. How can you truly sell yourself?

Emotions in Content Marketing

According to a study by university researcher Karen Nelson-Field was conducted for the purpose of seeing if emotions can influence the number of times a social media post is shared.

Digital marketing expert Jeff Bullas stresses that emotion in social media marketing is a vital skill to have. He states that joy and sadness are the two primary emotions to avoid in creating captivating content. With happiness it is the most used emotion. For that reason it is impossible to separate from the herd. Everyone is putting out the same message. Furthermore, sadness is a no go. It has been overused in the marketing industry and for that reason audiences have become as Bullas described “desensitized” to its effects.

Bullas suggests that marketers use anger, but with heavy caution. Since it is a predominantly negative people do not want to associate themselves with this feeling. But it is a powerful emotion if you can offer a resolution to this pain. Leading your audience from one negative to a positive.

Which emotion should I use to connect to my audience?

Humans have a tendency to believe that they are entirely rational. Unaffected by their emotions.

A study by scholars at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburg school of Law begs to differ.

” The authors draw on recent research that demonstrates that human decision-making is governed by two neural systems–the deliberative and the affective, or emotional. The latter, which the authors dub emote control, is much older, and served an adaptive role in early humans by helping them meet basic needs and identify and respond quickly to danger. “Through millions of years of evolution are brain’s have been split into a logical thinking and emotional brain.

The scholars explain that “human behaviour is not under the sole control of emotion or deliberation” but it is a combination of the two working hand in hand.

“Emote control is fast, but can respond only to a limited amount of situations, while deliberation is far more flexible but relatively slow and laborious. Emote control is the default decision-making system. Deliberation kicks in when a person encounters a situation that is new or when the correct response is not evident. Emote control is highly attuned to vivid imagery, immediacy and novelty, meaning that the emotional system is more likely to respond to events that are associated with striking visual images, that occurred in the recent past, and that people are unfamiliar with and have not had time to adapt to.”

From this passage, we can understand the importance of visual aids to content marketing. In Medina’s analysis of the brain in his book Brain Rules he uncovered the following. Humans who hear information will retain over 10% of that knowledge three days later. In comparison to adding a picture and remember over 65%. The potential of this is limitless in the travel industry where visual aesthetics, how you style your picture is a determining factor in attracting new customers.

Surprise

Bullas states that “surprise is the best emotion used in order to create a memorable lasting relationship with readers. If the audience know your social channels consistently deliver content designed to make them smile, they’ll enjoy it. However, if you place a post designed to elicit happiness or laughter in amongst more serious content then it will receive much more attention”. This goes back to humanizing your brand.

How do your audience see you?

How do you see them?

Are they a product or a statistic?

You must humanize your brand to build lasting and meaningful relationships. To rekindle old and lost ones. But it all starts with organizational culture from the bottom to the top.

Facebook

Facebook is the largest social network on the planet. Digital Marketing company, Zephoria states that there are over 2.27 billion monthly active users. Travel marketers should focus on how they run advertisements on this platform.

Promoting of visually inspiring and salivating content for your target audience. The pictures combined with your copy, and offers should be enough to make them want to pack theirs bags and jet off. This content must me memorable.

2. Bias

Your advertisement is now in a place to be seen by your target audience. They view your ad but like affiliated marketing they do not feel inclined to buy right away. They become biased to buy it in a future date.

3. Purchase

A few days or weeks have passed. Audiences recall your visually memorable ad selling a mouthwatering offer. They either do a “branded search” for your services. Or they do an “unbranded search“. If you have optimised your site they are biased towards clicking your website on google’s search engine page. You have established credibility in your advertisements so either way you could be walking away with a win.

Facebook ads are great for getting more impressions to your services. The more your target audience know about your agency. Its exclusive offers and story to tell the more you can raise your conversion rates

Twitter

Twitter is a micro blogging platform. It is more text based than Facebook and Instagram. It is known for its rapidity. According to Stantoncomm.com the average lifespan of a tweet lasts for about 18 minutes. With the shelf life of one tweet is four times shorter than anything you post on Facebook. In any given day 6000 tweets are fired off every second.

Travel agencies can leverage the highway speed of that app to offer their audience exclusive offers and deals.

Steps for Success in Twitter

Tweet Frequently

Churn out enough content to keep your audience engaged. Tweet consistently and monitor how your audience responds to what you say. Tweet at times that is appropriate to your audience.

2. Notice What Works and What doesn’t

Ultimately what will work for me may not work for you. Trial and Error. Record your failures and your triumphs. If you adapt your writing style or strategy just make sure that it is congruent with your values. Who you say you are and what you do for your audience must align.

3. Engage With Your Audience

Rekindle the curiosity you had as a child. Ask open ended questions to your audience. Create polls and asked closed questions to build upon your understanding. Answer questions that they may have for you. Be readily available.

4. Study Your Competitors

As well as doing your homework on your competitors. Look at what they are doing right and wrong? What can you learn from their successes and failures?

5. Utilise Tools

Do not bog your posts down in hashtags. Stick to 1 to 3 hashtags. Anymore and it seems like you are desperate. You do not want to be associated with spam bot accounts. Keep them simple. Retweet relevant content to your audience, cosign other accounts in good faith that they will support your content. These could be lifestyle pages that sell the destination that you are offering. Salivate the imaginations of your audience with pictures and videos.

Instagram

As June 2018, Instagram has over 1 billion monthly users. The visual social networking site Instagram continues to be a digital gold mine for travel marketers. Purely visually focused with a less focus on the text. This means that brands can story tell with ease depicting visual experiences that make viewers feel like they are there

3 Steps for Success

Post Pictures that are Congruent With Your Brand’s Message

Taking high resolution pictures accompanied by captions that are congruent with your brand’s message is vital. Your caption and picture conflicting will go confuse your audience. Dusty pictures that looks they were taken on a Nokia will not do the job. This is where a photographer will come in hand.

2. Exclusivity and Inclusion

Make your audience feel like they are getting exclusive behind the scenes access. Limited time offers, give people an anticipated sense of urgency to make a decision. Showcasing your staff in on your stories working on projects on Instagram stories. Additionally, your followers want to see your agency for what it really is. Instagram is your visual storyboard for this message. Ask for visual feedback about a customer’s trip. Share it on your page. Show that your brand is a community from the inside and outside.

3. Use the Instagram Business Page

In this profile you can optimise who you are by categorising your page. In addition you can use analytics to check your engagement. This tool measures your followers. Daily, weekly, and monthly visits as well as impressions.